AQE Exam Results

blfastboy

leftieM wrote: »

Whether we, as parents, like it or not, it isn't the school's job to prepare children for private exams. The transfer tests have been abolished.

I don't have any particular fear surrounding the schooling of my daughter, regardless of the outcome of the AQE test she did, the standard of education here is excellent at all levels. What I did object to was Catriona Ruane's prevaricating and lack of departmental advice to schools on what to replace selection with. She gave no advice until it was too late, the advice her department eventually gave was rubbish, she painted the schools into a corner then threatened to sue them if they used AQE/GL and threatened to sue primary schools that prepared the kids for the tests.

I'd suggest a government minister threatening to sue her own department is an incompetent one who needs to go.

Willyk

blfastboy, Thanks for the input. As you say what I am trying to do is rather pointless. Just have to wait and see what happens. Rgds.

rolo1_2

blfastboy wrote: »

There is no point trying to map the eleven plus bandings above onto the AQE test for a number of statistical reasons :

* The old 11+ applied to ALL those wishing to attend a NI Grammar school, CCMS and non-denominational. Now (largely) the CCMS schools run GL and the non-denominational kids did AQE, so the sample sizes are halved for each (with a small overlap of kids that did both) for an equal number of places.

* Fewer kids in total did either exam than would have originally sat the 11+ so saying 'only As got into x school before' is irrelevant now because As were only given to a percentage of kids that took the exam, but the number of actual places remains constant.

Hope I've phrased that half-clearly. In short 11+ was based on proportions of the number of pupils doing the test. Those numbers are now split over two tests, and the overall number doing the tests is down too. Old grades don't map, and it's pointless trying.

In short, the new system is a shambles and it's going to take some unpicking. It's a disgrace that our politicians haven't sorted this out. They've had six years but chose to create artificial crises over other irrelevant matters. Our education minister should hang her head in shame that she allowed this to happen, and the rest of them for playing politics with education. In a saner world, she'd have been sacked.

One thing's for sure, it's not the kids' fault.

Well said!!.
I would advise parents not to got hung up on trying to match up the AQE score with previous 11+ grades. I would also advise strongly not to rule out a school because you think your child's score won't be high enough. Pick the schools you would like in rank order and let the clearing system sort it out (you have nothing to lose!)

During one open night at an East Antrim Grammar school the headteacher annouced to all that he fully expects a score 95+ to get a place and 85+ to have every chance and below 85 may still be in with a shout. Places are up for grabs, so let the clearing system work it all out.
Even a so called low score is still in the mix.

bangor_dad

Ok, so start position is last year there were about 23,000 P7 kids, of these about 15,000 sat the 11+. An A grade was awarded to the top 25% aff all P7s (NOT 25% of those that sat the test). So about 37% of those sitting the tests got an A grade and about another 7.5% of those sitting the tests got a B1.
Now this year about 7,000 sat AQE and about 6,700 sat the GL tests (some will have sat both but probably not many), so roughly 13,700 sat tests this year compared to 15,000 last year which sounds reasonable.
If P7 population is roughly the same as last year then 25% of 23,000
is 5,750, so to have the equivalent of an A you would need to be in the top 5,750 (across AQE &GL tests) this is equivalent to the top 42% of those sitting the tests. The next 8% is equivalent to a B1. So A & B1 takes up the top 50%.
This all stacks up with the fact that there are 4,600 places at the grammar schools which are using AQE equivalent to 65% of the number of kids who sat the test. There are lots of grammar schools taking B2s & Cs which expalins the gap between 65% and 50% redferred to above.

lisburn-dad

:ABangor-Dad , this is best post I have seen. We have been scratching our head all day. Our daughter got 101 in AQE and BBC report last week suggested this was in B1-~B2 range???

As just above average I was very concerned that this was correct as our local grammars rarely go below B2.

Your information has helped us to feel a bit more positive , as she is within top 50%!

am I understanding you correctly?

sniffy_2

stephenni1971 wrote: »

Anyone else in the same boat getting these this morning?

I am at a loss as to what the result actually means???

Can anyone help a confused dad...

Mr Young from aqe was on bbc newsline 3/2/2010 speaking to Maggie Taggart
It was explained that 113+ = a grade
106-112 = a grade, top b1
98- 105 =b1, topb2
88-97=b2, topCs
These were given as a guidance to help parents make sense of the bands in relation to the 11plus scores

The same information was published in last night's belfast telegraph.


hope this is of some use

bangor_dad

Lisburn dad, all very confusing, we started yesterday morning with a daughter in tears with score of 105. Have spent time trying to make sense of it all. Basically my gut feeling is that those schools which took As and B1s the cut off is going to be around 100. If your school takes some if not all B2s then cut off more likely to be about 98/99 but there is going to be large number of kids in this range.

Hope that's of use to you & good luck.

joanne_78

bangor_dad wrote: »

Lisburn dad, all very confusing, we started yesterday morning with a daughter in tears with score of 105. Have spent time trying to make sense of it all. Basically my gut feeling is that those schools which took As and B1s the cut off is going to be around 100. If your school takes some if not all B2s then cut off more likely to be about 98/99 but there is going to be large number of kids in this range.

Hope that's of use to you & good luck.

My daughter was very upset and crying at her score of 102 and what didn't help was the look of confusion on our faces when she asked us to explain it. I feel sorely let down by our education minister right now who shouldn't have stopped the 11plus exams without having an informed replacement.

lisburn-dad

:rotfl:Your daughter did really well , hope she is feeling more reassured now.

Thank you again and good luck to you as well

rolo1_2

joanne_78 wrote: »

My daughter was very upset and crying at her score of 102 and what didn't help was the look of confusion on our faces when she asked us to explain it. I feel sorely let down by our education minister right now who shouldn't have stopped the 11plus exams without having an informed replacement.

102 is a very good score. Well done to your daughter.